Joe Bauman: Awe of the universe that reaches beyond science

For well over half my life — and at age 71, that's a tall pile of years — I have loved a poem by Walt Whitman, "When I heard the Learn'd Astronomer."When I heard the learn'd astronomer;When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;Till rising and glid